"Shan't you be late at the works?"
"Well, if I'm late at the beautiful works I shall be late at the beautiful works. Those who don't like it will have to lump it."
Once more, it was the consciousness of a loose, entirely available two hundred and twenty-five pounds that was making him restive under the yoke of regular employment. For a row of pins, that morning, he would have given Jim Horrocleave a week's notice, or even the amount of a week's wages in lieu of notice! Rachel sighed, but within herself.
In another minute he was elegantly flying down Bycars Lane, guiding his own bicycle with his right hand and the crock with his left hand. The feat appeared miraculous to Rachel, who watched from the bow-window of the parlour. Beyond question he made a fine figure. And it was for her that he was flying to Hanbridge! She turned away to her domesticity.
II
It seemed to her that he had scarcely been gone ten minutes when one of the glorious taxicabs which had recently usurped the stand of the historic fly under the Town Hall porch drew up at the front door, and Louis got out of it. The sound of his voice was the first intimation to Rachel that it was Louis who was arriving. He shouted at the cabman as he paid the fare. The window of the parlour was open and the curtains pinned up. She ran to the window, and immediately saw that Louis' head was bandaged. Then she ran to the door. He was climbing rather stiffly up the steps.
"All right! All right!" he shouted at her. "A spill. Nothing of the least importance. But both the jiggers are pretty well converted into old iron. I tell you it's all right! Shut the door."
He bumped down on the oak chest, and took a long breath.
"But you are frightfully hurt!" she exclaimed. She could not properly see his face for the bandages.
Mrs. Tams appeared. Rachel murmured to her in a flash—